In 2016, the overall unemployment rate for the United States was 4.9 percent; however, the rate varied across race and ethnicity groups. Among the race groups, the rates were higher for American Indians and Alaska Natives (8.9 percent), Blacks (8.4 percent), and people categorized as being of Two or More Races (7.5 percent) than for Asians (3.6 percent), Whites (4.3 percent), and Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders (4.4 percent). The jobless rate for people of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity was 5.8 percent, higher than the 4.7-percent rate for non-Hispanics.
Labor market differences among the race and ethnicity groups are associated with many factors, not all of which are measurable. These factors include variations in educational attainment across the groups; the occupations and industries in which the groups work; the geographic areas of the country in which the groups are concentrated, including whether they tend to reside in urban or rural settings; and the degree of discrimination encountered in the workplace.
Politsturm: Even governmental sources such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics are unable to hide the fact that the capitalist economic system is discriminatory and racist. The unemployment rate for black, native, and Hispanic Americans are proportionally higher than the average level. The recent report then goes on to claim that not all of the factors are “measurable” and gives excuses such as geographic location, educational attainment, and employer discrimination to explain away the discrepancies. Of course the bourgeois source fails to address the systematic failure of the capitalist system to consider or address this massive failure.
The “cause” of this employment discrimination is not education nor geographic location. Rather, the capitalist economic system allows the capitalist class to discriminate on the basis of race. America has a long history of racism and discrimination dating back centuries. The economic catastrophe of 2008 caused a resurgence in racial tensions and white nationalism that we are witnessing to this day. These unemployment statistics prove that systematic racism exists and has a corrosive impact on people’s lives. However, it would be a grave mistake for the working class not to recognize how the capitalist class divides the working class on the basis of race to distract workers from the systematic oppression of the capitalist system.